Improve Your Job

Turn The Job You Have Into The Job You Want

A 30-year-old midlevel manager — let’s call her Fatima — is struggling at work, but you wouldn’t know it from outward appearances. A star member of her team in the marketing division of a large multinational foods company, Fatima consistently hits her benchmarks and goals. She invests long hours and has built relationships with colleagues that she deeply values. And her senior managers think of her as one of the company’s high potentials.But outside the office, Fatima (who asked not to be identified by her real name) would admit that she feels stagnant in her job, trapped by the tension between day-to-day demands and what she really wants to be doing: exploring how the company can use social media in its marketing efforts. Twitter, her cause-marketing blog, and mobile gadgets are her main passions. She’d like to look for another job, but given the slow recovery from the recession, sticking it out seems like her best (and perhaps only) option. “I’m still working hard,” she tells a friend. “But I’m stuck. Every week, I feel less and less motivated. I’m beginning to wonder why I wanted this position in the first place.”Sound familiar? Over the past several years, we’ve spoken with hundreds of people, in a variety of industries and occupations, who, like Fatima, are feeling stuck — that dreaded word again. According to a recent survey of 5,000 U.S. households by The Conference Board, only 45% of those polled say they are satisfied with their jobs — down from about 60% in 1987, the first year the survey was conducted.If you’re in this situation, and changing roles or companies is unrealistic given the tough economy, what can you do? A growing body of research suggests that an exercise we call “job crafting” can be a powerful tool for reenergizing and reimagining your work life.

It

involves redefining your job to incorporate your motives, strengths, and passions. The exercise prompts you to visualize the job, map its elements, and reorganize them to better suit you. In this way, you can put personal touches on how you see and do your job, and you’ll gain a greater sense of control at work — which is especially critical at a time when you’re probably working longer and harder and expecting to retire later.Perhaps job crafting’s best feature is that it’s driven by you, not your supervisor.

This exercise involves assessing and then altering one or more of the following core aspects of work.

Diagramming Your Job

Back at the multinational foods company, Fatima is still frustrated. What would happen if she engaged in job crafting? She’s already been reflecting on her dissatisfaction,albeit in no systematic way. Job crafting would give her the means to diagram a more ideal — but still realistic — version of her job, one better aligned with her motives, strengths, and passions.First, she looks at the present makeup of her job. In her “before diagram,” Fatima uses a series of squares to represent the tasks that her job comprises, with larger squares representing time-intensive tasks, and smaller squares tasks to which she devotes less time. (See the exhibit “Fatima’s before diagram.”)

She notices that she’s spending lots of time monitoring her team’s performance, answering questions, and directing market research. She’s spending a fair number of hours setting budgets, writing reports, and running meetings. And she’s spending very little time on critical tasks such as professional development and designing marketing strategies. These tasks are in the smallest squares. Looking at the full sweep of her job in this way gives Fatima a clear sense — truly at a glance — of exactly where she is devoting her time and energy.